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An example of the newz

Ok I posted a thread to address voluntering for the news. If anything happens I'm am soley responsible but this article was taken from securityfocus.com, I left it just as is from there website. Doing this type of News, is what I was talking about. It was posted by a member for members. So you can know of what's going on. Possibly in the future If were allowed to do this addressing the thread Newz or somthing so everyone knows it's news and not just a thread. Give your replys to what you think

The U.S. Senate today approved legislation expanding the authority of federal investigators to monitor the Internet and phone activities of suspected terrorists and their associates. President Bush has said he will sign the bill.

The Senate voted 98-1 to pass the same anti-terrorism bill that the House of Representatives approved Wednesday by a vote of 357-66. Compromise Language, negotiated by Senate and House leaders after the two bodies passed differing anti-terrorism bills earlier this month, now heads to the White House for Bush's signature.

Bush said earlier this week that he "look(s) forward to signing this bipartisan plan into law so that we can combat terrorism and prevent future attacks."

Among other things, the anti-terrorism measure expands federal wiretapping and electronic surveillance authority and lowers the evidentiary standards that investigators must meet when seeking Internet, phone, business, medical and other records from suspected terrorists and the people with whom those suspects come in contact.

Sounding a lonely note of criticism in the hours of debate leading up to today's passage, Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., said, "preserving our freedom is one of the main reasons we are now engaged in this new war on terrorism. We will lose this war without firing a shot if we sacrifice the liberties of the American people."

Feingold cast the sole vote opposing the legislation.

Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Republican Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, dismissed Feingold's words of opposition, arguing that the legislation would serve as an important tool in preventing future terrorist attacks.
'This may prove to be one of the biggest mistakes our Congress has ever made.'
-- Jerry Berman, CDT
Responding to concerns Feingold raised about a potential erosion of civil liberties, Hatch said, "I am more concerned about the thousands of lives that have been lost and the lives that could be lost ... because law enforcement doesn't have the tools it needs."

But civil liberties advocates who have ardently opposed the bill say no evidence has been offered indicating bill's provisions would help prevent future terrorist acts.

"We object to the characterization of this bill as a compromise between national security and civil liberties," Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) Executive Director Jerry Berman said today. "This may prove to be one of the biggest mistakes our Congress has ever made," Berman added.

Berman argued that the legislation constitutes an unprecedented expansion of police surveillance powers. CDT and other bill opponents say that the legislation will allow investigators to freely view virtually anyone's most personal records.

Under the bill language, law enforcers must simply assert to a judge that they are seeking information in connection with a terrorist investigation in order to obtain phone, business and other records of suspects and their associates.

Although the original bills passed by the Senate and the House were both based closely on an administration proposal drafted by the Justice Department in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the two versions included a handful of significant differences.

Most notably, the House version included a "sunset clause" that required Congress to review many of the surveillance provisions in the bill after three years.

Last week, Senate and House negotiators reached an agreement on the sunset clause.

Under the compromise, the House language - which included a three-year sunset that could have been expanded to five years by the president - will be replaced with a defined four-year sunset, which would require congressional review of much of the bill by Dec. 31, 2005.

CDT supported a sunrise, but warned that such a provision did not "fix" the bill's constitutional problems.

CDT Deputy Director Jim Dempsey also said the final iteration of the sunset clause passed today does not apply to some of the more contentious surveillance and federal information sharing provisions included in the bill.

Hey freeOn; I have been thinking about doing the same thing also. I would like to contribute to the AO Community, but I am not that experienced in Security. And lord knows that I go to a wide variety of computer-related websites during the day. So, I'll go ahead and start posting news, with you.

WOW ok didn't expect to get a response like that, very cool. Well if that's what you guys want then I suggest that we put somthing together and start doing it. See how many members would like to do it. and we will start organizing it.

Very interesting yet frightening storys, especially yours faust. Its my opinion that microsoft as well as other companys have been moving to make the internet less and less anonymous over the years. this passport sounds like a very bad idea, this clip from the page was especially unnerving

"Up to 200 million people have signed up for Passport accounts, which are nearly impossible to avoid under Microsoft's new Windows XP operating system. Passport promises consumers a single, convenient method for identifying themselves across different Web sites."

And as long as this whole thread is going, anybody have any thoughts on spyware? here is a page concerning realnetworks and others, worth reading if you got the time http://grc.com/downloaders.htm